Related papers: Experimental challenges for high-mass matter-wave …
Matter-wave interferometry with atoms and molecules has attracted a rapidly growing interest over the past two decades, both in demonstrations of fundamental quantum phenomena and in quantum-enhanced precision measurements. Such experiments…
We review recent progress and future prospects of matter wave interferometry with complex organic molecules and inorganic clusters. Three variants of a near-field interference effect, based on diffraction by material nanostructures, at…
We discuss the concept of an all-optical and ionizing matter-wave interferometer in the time domain. The proposed setup aims at testing the wave nature of highly massive clusters and molecules, and it will enable new precision experiments…
Extending the range of quantum interferometry to a wider class of composite nanoparticles requires new tools to diffract matter waves. Recently, pulsed photoionization light gratings have demonstrated their suitability for high mass…
Matter-wave interferometry with increasingly larger masses could pave the way to understanding the nature of wavefunction collapse, the quantum to classical transition or even how an object in a spatial superposition interacts with its…
Research on matter waves is a thriving field of quantum physics and has recently stimulated many investigations with electrons, neutrons, atoms, Bose-condensed ensembles, cold clusters and hot molecules. Coherence experiments with complex…
We demonstrate a near-field Talbot-Lau interferometer for C-70 fullerene molecules. Such interferometers are particularly suitable for larger masses. Using three free-standing gold gratings of one micrometer period and a transversally…
Matter-wave interference experiments enable us to study matter at its most basic, quantum level and form the basis of high-precision sensors for applications such as inertial and gravitational field sensing. Success in both of these…
The quantum wave nature of matter is a cornerstone of modern physics, which has been demonstrated for a wide range of fundamental and composite particles. While diffraction at nanomechanical masks is usually regarded to be independent of…
We consider various effects that are encountered in matter wave interference experiments with massive nanoparticles. The text-book example of far-field interference at a grating is compared with diffraction into the dark field behind an…
Matter-wave interferometry has become an essential tool in studies on the foundations of quantum physics and for precision measurements. Mechanical gratings have played an important role as coherent beamsplitters for atoms, molecules and…
A generalized description of Talbot-Lau interference with matter waves is presented, which accounts for arbitrary grating interactions and realistic beam characteristics. The dispersion interaction between the beam particles and the optical…
Paths of particles, emitted from distributed sources and passing out through slits of two gratings, $G_{0}$ and $G_{1}$, up to detectors, have been computed in details by the path integral method. The slits are represented by Gaussian…
Matter-wave interferometry performed with massive objects elucidates their wave nature and thus tests the quantum superposition principle at large scales. Whereas standard quantum theory places no limit on particle size, alternative, yet…
We explore a wide range of fundamental magnetic phenomena by measuring the dephasing of matter-wave interference fringes upon application of a variable magnetic gradient. The versatility of our interferometric Stern-Gerlach technique…
We study the interference of C70 fullerenes in a Talbot-Lau interferometer with a large separation between the diffraction gratings. This permits the observation of recurrences of the interference contrast both as a function of the de…
Recent progress in matter-wave interferometry aims to directly probe the quantum properties of matter on ever increasing scales. However, in order to perform interferometric experiments with massive mesoscopic objects, taking into account…
The Talbot effect, in which a wave imprinted with transverse periodicity reconstructs itself at regular intervals, is a diffraction phenomenon that occurs in many physical systems. Here we present the first observation of the Talbot effect…
Starting from an elementary model and refining it to take into account more realistic effects, we discuss the limitations and advantages of matter-wave interferometry in different configurations. We focus on the possibility to apply this…
Imaging of surface adsorbed molecules is investigated as a novel detection method for matter wave interferometry with fluorescent particles. Mechanically magnified fluorescence imaging turns out to be an excellent tool for recording quantum…